What’s the strategery here?

I keep hearing that Republicans have more leverage on the debt ceiling debate, so we shouldn’t feel so bad that nothing got accomplished on the initial “fiscal cliff” deal.

How’s that again?

The basic structure of the game is the same, but the Republicans are sitting on a nuclear bomb rather than just a daisy-cutter. The same media memes will play out… Obama will accuse the Republicans of holding the nation hostage and call for a “balanced” approach that is anything but.

Perhaps Republicans will grow a pair between now and then. Perhaps the media can be sufficiently prepped by weeks of campaigning to Jedi-mind-trick folks into thinking this is a different game.

But it isn’t a very different game. It’s almost exactly the same. You could even argue that it’s worse for Republicans because the consequences of failure are worse. In the nightmare scenario we have a “hard” sovereign default. To avoid this, Obama will probably make a power grab, such as invoking the 14th Amendment, or minting new large-denomination platinum coins.